All My Fault
by aehawthorne
Summary: Oliver goes to the loft with the intention of simply being there for Felicity in the wake of Billy's death, knowing that she shouldn't have to go through it alone, all the while overcome with guilt for his role in that event


Susan looked surprised to find Oliver outside her door so late at night. He couldn't say that he blamed her. He wasn't really sure what he was doing there himself, to be honest.

"Oliver," Susan said, her surprise creeping into her voice. "What time is it?"  
"I'm sorry," Oliver replied. "I didn't know where else to go."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Susan asked.

"Not really," Oliver said dully.

"Come on," Susan said, gesturing inside. "Come in."

"Can I get you a drink?" she asked as Oliver followed her into her apartment.

"I could use a drink," he said, taking a seat on her couch.

"Why?" Susan asked, reaching for one of the bottles on her end table and pouring two glasses. "I thought things were getting better."  
"So did I," Oliver replied, "but that feeling never seems to last."

"And why do you think that is?" Susan asked, sitting down on the couch beside him and handing him one of the glasses.

"I was reunited with someone from my past recently," Oliver said in answer. "I knew his father, and he told me that I ruin the lives of everyone I come into contact with. Doesn't matter how much I love them- if I'm in their life, that life turns to ash." The faces of all the people who were worse off because he was a part of their life flashed through his mind, the proof of Prometheus' words.

"I think that's ridiculous," Susan said, almost dismissively. "Everyone's life touches everyone else's. Sometimes the result is good, and sometimes it's bad, but _you_ are only focusing on the bad."

"My sister said something similar to that," Oliver remarked, mostly to himself.

"Well, she's a smart woman," Susan said. "Look, no matter what's going on in your life, Oliver, shutting people out is the last thing you should do." After a pause, she murmured, "Let me show you" and then she was kissing him, her hands cradling the sides of his face, and he realized- this wasn't where he needed to be. There was someone out there who needed him right now, who needed someone to help them through this more than he needed to forget it.

"I'm sorry, Susan," he said, pulling away from her, though he couldn't quite manage to make himself feel bad about the hurt and confusion in her eyes. "I have to go. There's something I need to do." He bolted for the door before she could even think to try and stop him. Once he was in his car and driving away, he let his mind go utterly, blissfully blank. He didn't have to think about what he was doing, where he was going, the route he was taking. He just let his muscle memory take over and get him to where he needed to go.

When Oliver reached the loft, he could just faintly hear soft sobs coming from inside. He felt his heart break even more. He should have known that something like this would happen, that Felicity would wait until she was alone before she let herself break down, convinced that the team couldn't be allowed to see her fall apart, that they needed her to be strong.

"Felicity?" he called out, rapping gently on the door. The sound of crying stopped for just a moment, but Felicity didn't answer him. "Look, I know I'm probably the last person you want to see right now, but I thought that you shouldn't be alone. Not after- after everything that's just happened." He didn't hear footsteps, didn't hear any sign that Felicity was coming to let him in, but a moment later the door swung open and he was taking in his first view of her since delivering the news of Billy's death back at the bunker. She was dressed in pajamas, her hair a mess, her eyes red and puffy from crying, tear tracks streaking her face. Never, not once, in the five years he'd known Felicity had Oliver ever thought of her as fragile, not even when she was lying pale and sickly looking in a hospital bed, but that was how she looked now, as if at any moment she might shatter like glass.

_I did this to her_, Oliver thought, and in his haze of guilt and grief and sorrow, he'd barely registered that Felicity was still crying before she was falling into his arms, her sobs getting louder and more violent, shaking her shoulders and rattling her small frame until she trembled against him like an autumn leaf in the wind. He doesn't tell her that it's okay, because he knew that it wasn't, and he didn't want to lie to her, not again. _Never _again. And he couldn't tell her that it was _going_ to be okay, because he wasn't sure that it would be, and false hope was just as bad as a lie. All he could do was hold her while she fell apart, weeping for the death of a man that he had killed, a death that he, whatever Prometheus' role in it had been, was ultimately responsible for. The thought haunts him, clinging to his brain, as stubborn and persistent as a thorn in his side- once more, in spite of all the hundreds of promises he'd made to himself to never allow it to happen again, Felicity was hurt because of something he had done. In that moment, he feels his brokenness more keenly than he ever has before, feels its jagged edges cutting into him, leaving scars on his soul, but he forces himself not to pull away, not to close himself off behind his walls the way he so desperately wants to. Felicity was in pain because of him, but she needed him, needed _someone_, right now, and he couldn't allow himself to fail her.

"I'm sorry, Felicity," he murmured, holding her tightly. "I'm so sorry." If she heard him at all in the midst of her grief, she didn't respond, and as he listens to her cry, Oliver doesn't think his heart will ever stop breaking.


End file.
